CTV News has announced, "Native tribes from the U.S. and Canada signed a treaty Tuesday establishing an inter-tribal alliance to restore bison to areas of the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains where millions of the animals once roamed.

"Leaders of about a dozen tribes from Montana and Alberta signed the pact during a daylong ceremony on Montana's Blackfeet Reservation, organizers said.

"It marks the first treaty among the tribes and First Nations since a series of agreements governing hunting rights in the 1800s.

"The long-term aim of Tuesday's "Buffalo Treaty" is to allow the free flow of the animals across the international border and restore the bison's central role in the food, spirituality and economies…

"The idea is, hey, if you see buffalo in your everyday life, a whole bunch of things will come back to you," said Leroy Little Bear, a member of southern Alberta Blood Tribe who helped lead the signing ceremony.

"…Bison numbered in the tens of millions across North America before the West was settled. By the 1880s, unchecked commercial hunting to feed the bison hide market reduced the population to about 325 animals in the U.S. and fewer than 1,000 in Canada, according to wildlife officials and bison trade groups in Canada. Around the same time, tribes were relocated to reservations and forced to end their nomadic traditions.

"There are about 20,000 wild bison in North America today."